Brad goes to NASA

In June Brad attended Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training (BOSIET) at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston.  The training is for those new to the offshore oil and gas industry and includes helecoptor survival, emergency first aid, sea survival, fire fighting, self rescue, and lifeboat training.

One of the highlights of the training was the Helecopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET).  The purpose is to prepare for an emergency exit in case of a crash landing over water.  The picture below is a helicopter cockpit simulation.  The simulator is connected to a crane which lowers it into the pool to simulate a sinking helicopter.  The most complicated exercise involved being completely submerged, rotating 180 degrees (upside-down), utilizing a re-breather, knocking out the window and escaping to the surface.  The hardest part is trying to stay oriented once flipped upside-down under the water...it took some in the group a few tries...  There were seven different scenarios that took about 4 hours to complete them all.

Below is a picture of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) with the survival raft in the far left corner Brad practiced with.  NASA's NBL is an astronaut training facility near the Johnson Space Center in Houston.  The main feature of the NBL is obviously the gigantic pool where the astronauts are able to wear specially designed suits that provide "neutral buoyancy" to simulate the microgravity experienced in space.

The pool is 202 ft. in length, 102 ft. wide, and 40.4 ft. deep holding a total of 6.2 million gallons of water.  The pool has never been emptied in it's lifetime due to the extreme amount of water it would take to fill back up.  Underwater is a full scale mockup of the International Space Station

 

Below is a picture of the under-suit the astronaut trainees wear to regulate their tempurature and keep cool while wearing the specially designed space suits for water.

Below is a picture of the space suit the astronauts wear in the pool for training purposes.  The suit is about half the weight of what they would be wearing in space and is just under 200 lbs. (the ones worn in space are closer to 400 lbs.).  They are lowered into the pool using one of the overhead cranes.  The initial training done here is conducted over a period of about 2 years and they spend 11 hours underwater for every hour spent in space.  Each underwater session lasts 6 hours before they come back to surface...no bathroom breaks :)

There are 4 divers there with each astronaut who perform various tasks such as assist with tools, diver safety, maintenance, etc.

Tanner's first day of Pre-K!

Then it was Tanner's turn!  Tanner has been asking everyday since Carson started school if he was going to school tomorrow.  Preschool here starts after Labor day s Tanner had to wait 3 long weeks, until it was his turn, but boy was he sure excited to go!

Here he is at meet the teacher.

Ms. Kelly and Ms. Lori.  Carson had Ms. Lori when he went to preschool here, so it was exciting to see a similar face.  Ms. Lori was so excited that she was going to have Carson's brother in her class, because Carson was one of her favorite students.  "he was always smiling and so happy"

The day finally arrived!  First day of his last year in preschool.  It was actually a little hard on me to see him go, and yet at the same time super happy for him, because I know how excited he is to go .  He's just growing up too fast!

He was running into the school

but I made him stop and take a picture.

He was so sweet holding hands with Logan as he walked into school!

and I needn't worry Tanner jumped right into the preschool scene.  

Logan was so cute when we went to pick up Tanner, he ran to him and gave him the biggest hug.  He sure misses his brothers when they're at school.

Tanner's teacher said he had a great first day.  So excited to see him grow throughout the year!

This all marks my 700th post!  Wowza! 

Labor Day

Over labor day weekend, we had our cousins come and play!  Brian and Catherine got stationed to Fort Hood, Texas at they moved here at the end of July.  Brad and I were actually talking about going to see them over labor day, so when Catherine sent a text asking to come here I couldn't help but laugh.  She was reading my mind!  It was so good to see them again!  We missed not living close to each other like we were in Arizona, plus its fun now that we all have kids the same ages that can play.

Tanner and Sienna were especially cute to see play.  And Logan and Crew just ran around in circles chasing each other.  

We took them to Kemah boardwalk to play on the carousel rides, to eat some yummy fish, and so they could play at the beach.  It was a fun (although really hot) day!

Brad and the two older boys went on the Farris wheel, my kids love this ride:

 Brian with his kids:

 Carson riding the aviator ride:

Although they were here for the weekend these are the only pictures I took!  Oh well.  We'll be seeing them again soon.

First day of 2nd Grade

2nd grade here we come!

At meet the teacher night we got to see his new classroom,

 and meet his teachers.  Now that he is in second grade Carson has two teachers this year.  His homeroom teacher Ms. Leach, and his switch teacher Mr. Saldivar.  Ms. Leach teaches Carson english, writing, and arithmetic 

 Carson then switches to Mr. Saldivar's class for Math, science, and social studies.  I mostly hear about Mr. Saldivar since he teaches Carson's favorite subjects.

 First day of second grade!  He's looking so grown up!

 Tanner wanted to be included

 Our cute bus stop group!

 Carson's best friend Jude.  Sad that he's not in the same class anymore, but they still see each other at recess.

 After Carson's first day of school we went out to celebrate by getting snow cones.

Its been 3 weeks since school started and although we are still getting used to long days and having to do homework again, he really likes it.  Brad and I mostly hear about science though when we talk to him about his school days. "There are good germs and bad germs.  Good germs are your saliva and they help you to digest food. "  They also went to the science lab and looked at petri dishes and under black lights to look at germs on their hands.  He's loving it.  He stayed up all night talking to Tanner about it and how we must always wash our hands and put bandaids on when we get a cut so as not to spread germs.  Carson is a sponge and I love what he is soaking up.

Natural Bridge Cavern

The weekend before school started we wanted one last getaway as a family to say farewell to summer.  We decided to go to the Natural Bridge Caverns just outside San Antonio.  It was a fun little adventure and the boys thought it was so cool.  The caverns reminded me of Mount Timpanogos cave, but instead of hiking up a mountain we hiked down into the cave.  It had lots of stalagmites and stalactites from years of rain water dripping into the caverns.

 Beneath this natural bridge was the cavern (hence the name) 

 walking down into the belly of the beast.

 this one looked like melted wax to me

 the chandelier 

 the trail winding through the cavern

After our tour of the cavern we went winning for gems.

 we found some fools gold!

 showing off our treasures

Logan just loved the train

As we were leaving Carson said he wanted to mine for gold so he could help the Olympics by making the gold medals (the 2016 Rio Olympics were going on during this time).  Funny kid.

Our hotel was right on the River walk in San Antonio so we took a lovely evening stroll along the river.

this goofy kid.  I just love him.

and of course we couldn't be this close and not see the Alamo.

It was a perfect weekend getaway.  A change to have some fun together and to explore some new sights of Texas, before life gets crazy with school starting back up.